NMMO
by Wendish
Summary: A brief one-shot slice of life with B&B, ten years into their marriage. Inspired by a recent re-watch of Rocker in the Rinse Cycle (and Predator in the Pool)


_Created December 2013 - I don't own these characters as made famous by the TV show, Bones. Love them anyway. All the rest that follows is my feeble attempt to keep time in between broadcasts and Razztaztic, Threesquares, and Covalent Bond postings._

A/N - 12/05/2013. Thinking about this while watching Rocker in the Rinse Cycle. Very, very short little distraction. Happy holidays to all!

Oh, and the science is all smoke and mirrors too. Sorry Chem, for every flaw you find!

* * *

Booth listened to the slam of the screen door in the kitchen.

_Uhoh, something's up._ He thought as he defiantly shuffled the newspaper in his hands.

He had gotten into the habit of reading the paper late instead of in the mornings on Junior Intern days (or Mini-Squint Academy, as he affectionately called it). Even though by day's end, the newspaper held no new news, he enjoyed the solitude of an quiet empty house as his wife and daughter engaged in quality time at the Jeffersonian. That, plus he loved putting his ink-smudged fingers all over the expensive fancy-schmancy attire that his wife of ten years usually was wearing.

Her attire, as well as any bits of exposed flesh he could goose before their traumatized pre-teen daughter caught them and began to groan in protest.

While he chose to not yet move from his brilliant new recliner recently installed in the living room, he assessed the situation from the subtle hints already suggested:

_Coming in through the back means that they've had a fight, or that Christine's in one of her moods and doesn't want to talk, _he mused, knowing that neither of his girls welcomed a potential run in with a neighbor when they were feeling less than welcoming.

He cleared his throat while he listened for other clues.

"Thud!" went Christine's school bag, accompanied by a resigned sigh.

_Baby Girl's in distress..._

_"Hey BG! How was your day?" _He asked warily, peeking out from behind the newspaper, already aware that drama was about to ensue._  
_

Christine ran towards her father. "Oh Daddy!" she sobbed as Booth had just enough time to raise his arms to gate her into a Daddy-style embrace. "I'm so sorry!" She bawled.

"Whoa there, LadyBug!" He soothed. "What's the matter?"

Booth held the weeping Tween to his chest while she expended her anguish. By this point in time, his wife silently entered through the kitchen door, as well. She made eye contact with her confused husband, who was clutching their distraught little girl.

Upon hearing the slam of the door, Christine whirled around from her Dad's embrace with eyes of fire staring at her mother.

"It's Mom's fault, Dad! She told me to use _N-methylmorpholine N-oxide_! She told me to!" she protested, whimpering.

Unable to turn off the "Bones" in her, she continued "Nonetheless, I applied it, so it is my responsibility! Daddy Bear, I'm so sorry!" She howled with a fresh set of tears and a re-burrowing into her father's side.

Brennan regarded her daughter and husband, arms crossed in feigned disbelief. Booth gestured to her for any explanation of the wailing little girl in his arms, not that he minded, of course. But, he wanted the opportunity to play hero to her pain as urgently as possible.

But that was not yet meant to be. Brennan shrugged her shoulders, and then turned to remove groceries from the bags she had just placed on the center kitchen island.

_Okay. _Booth picked up the hint.

_Whatever it was, it __was__ Bones' fault_. He created a small distance between him and Christine. It was at that point in time that Booth noticed Christine's outfit.

As a student at The Sidwell Friends School, Christine was wearing her standard uniform, he noted. Except...

...except that she had been wearing one of his ties as well. It was Tie Tuesday after all.

Brennan, always a big fan of her hubby's wardrobe, had made a ritual of having Christine select from Dad's vast tie collection in order to honor the school's monthly theme day. That morning however, Brennan had to participate in a virtual conference call from Booth's Man Cave, so Daddy Bear and daughter performed the tie selection ritual instead.

As a result, he had expected to see the tie. But only now did he note something very important. Only a third of the tie was present, the rest was missing. from the surviving mess, it appeared that the silk dolphin tie they selected that morning had met a horrible fate. In some places, the edges were frayed, while in others the tie had hardened to a cauterized crisp.

Christine hiccuped, "I had spilled pizza sauce on it during school..." She began. "And when I got to the lab today, Mom told me to go to Uncle Jack's office to get some N-methylmorpholine N-oxide to clean it!" She sniffled.

"Oooop! I forgot my journal..." Brennan evaded, darting towards and out the back door.

Booth stared after his wife in shock...she was making a run for it!

_Bones is perfect,_ he considered. _Perfectly guilty! __What on Earth could she have done?_

Even though she had been exhibiting a mild case of what he joyfully called the "DIPS" - Dumbness Induced by Pregnancy Syndrome - since she had entered into the second trimester of her their very late in life baby surprise - it just meant that she was behaving like a "normal" person.

_She'd never get a chemical wrong. Ever. _He told himself.

_Would she? _Quickly, he pulled out his smartphone to text Hodgins.

"Shhh, BG, it's okay! It's alright, Honey. I don't care about some silly tie, as long as you're fine!" He said gently.

Trembling slightly, Christine peered up into her Daddy's eyes. She _hated_ disappointing him. What she regarded was love and sympathy, as was normally there.

"What did you say the chemical was?"

"N-methylmorpholine..." She began, but then remembered with whom she was speaking. "Just call it NMMO, Dad." She sighed.

A few minutes later, Brennan re-entered the house, with no journal in tow, but her husband leaning against the island, waiting for her, arms crossed.

"I must have left my journal at the office" she confessed nervously, eyeing her spouse up and down.

"Hmmm." He muttered, having located her journal in the satchel on the counter.

He uncrossed his arms and gestured for her to come to him. She obliged accordingly, not however without first giving his ink-stained hands a disapproving glance. He pulled her into his arms, rubbing his dirty hands all over her crisp white maternity blouse.

"Where's Christine?" She mumbled, her face buried in the expanse of Booth's chest. She never tired from listening to the vibrations of his voice rumble through his chest. She was enjoying it now, especially since she seemed to have escaped all of the tie drama_._

"Upstairs." He sighed, rocking her back and forth. "I told her that I wasn't angry, and that she should go wash her face. No use getting all riled up and bent out of shape over a tie..."

While years ago, Brennan would not have picked up on the subtle inflections in Booth's sentence; years of partnership, compounded with a loving marriage, had made her more sensitive to his sarcastic comments. She stepped back from him "Booth..." She began to defend.

He smirked at her. "I texted Hodgins. He says that NMMO causes silk to dissolve..." he grabbed her hips, turning her back flush with the island. He leaned closely into her face "seems like a brilliantly diabolical way for a jealous scientist to eliminate a tie given to her husband by a former girlfriend..."

His grin was full and broad.

With his mischievous accusation, Brennan's eyes grew wide and she stoically attempted to lean back as far away as possible from her gloating spouse.

She understood that her jealousy was irrational. But the emotions, fueled by her elevated hormonal state had kicked into overdrive the moment _her child_ walked into her office that afternoon with a totem representative of a social contract that _her man_ had once entered into with another woman.

"She was not your girlfriend" she evaded, snapping. She refused to acknowledge her weakness to the most base of human emotion - jealousy. "I was simply distracted when Christine asked for a remedy! I -"

Booth was now openly chuckling at his wife. Still pinning her to the island, he offered,"Y'know Bones, I was thinking that I'd like to move the Bakelite out of the laundry room. All the heat can't be good for it's longevity..."

Brennan stared with a look of horror at her spouse. She clearly wanted _that gift_ to remain in its fluff and fold exile. There was a definite (and irrational) reason that she encouraged as much sex as possible in that room, and Booth knew that it had nothing to do with the agitator.

Her face knotted up with irritation and disdain. Unexpectedly, she burst into tears.

And, as expected, her taunting husband switched to doting-mode.

"Babe! I was just teasing! I'm sorry!" Again, he swallowed Brennan up in a comforting embrace. "I promise, I'll behave OK? You know those things don't mean a thing to me, right? Just you and our family right? "You're all I need, hmm? Christine's fine. You're fine, right?" He kissed into her hair as she nodded affirmatively against his chest.

"I never liked that tie anyway" he mumbled.

Against his chest, out of his concerned view, Brennan smirked.

_ I __must remember to tell Angela that her 'cry-to-get-released-from-prison' hypothesis seems to be correct. _

_Babymoon in the Galapagos, here we come..._

* * *

A/N #2: always enjoyed that GH alum Rena Sofer was cast as "Brennan-lite" in this episode...


End file.
